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Part 2 How to use RubRics

How to CreateRubricspart.indd 2 9/11/12 10:35 AM Brookhart, Susan M.. How to Create and Use Rubrics for Formative Assessment and Grading, Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/amridge/detail.action?docID=1123215. Created from amridge on 2022-02-22 04:36:41.

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Brookhart, Susan M.. How to Create and Use Rubrics for Formative Assessment and Grading, Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/amridge/detail.action?docID=1123215. Created from amridge on 2022-02-22 04:36:41.

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9 Rubrics and Formative Assessment:

Sharing Learning Targets with Students

Learning targets describe what the student is going to learn, in language that the student can understand and aim for during today’s lesson (Moss & Brookhart, 2012). Learning targets include criteria that students can use to judge how close they are to the target, and that is why rubrics (or parts of rubrics, depending on the focus of the lesson) are good vehicles for sharing learning targets with students.

The idea that students will learn better if they know what they are supposed to learn is so important! Most teacher preparation programs emphasize instructional objectives, which are a great planning tool for teachers. However, instructional objectives are writ‑ ten in teacher language (“The student will be able to . . .”). Not only are the students referred to in third person, but the statements about what they will be able to do are in terms of evidence for teachers. In contrast, learning targets must imply the evidence that students should be looking for. Sometimes, for simple targets, instructional objec‑ tives can be turned into learning targets by simply making them first‑person (“I will know I have learned this when I can . . .”). More often, however, the language of the evidentiary part of the learning target—what students will look for—also needs to be written and demonstrated in terms students will understand. After all, if most of your students understand what your instructional objective means, you probably don’t need to teach the lesson.

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The most powerful way to share with students a vision of what they are supposed to be learning is to make sure your instructional activities and formative assessments (and, later, your summative assessments) are performances of understanding. A performance of understanding embodies the learning target in what you ask students to actually do. To use a simple, concrete example, if you want students to be able to use their new science content vocabulary to explain meiosis, design an activity in which students have to use the terms in explanations. That would be a performance of understanding. A word‑search activity would not be a performance of understanding for that learning target because what the students would actually be doing is recognizing the words.

Performances of understanding show students, by what they ask of them, what it is they are sup‑ posed to be learning. Performances of understand‑ ing develop that learning through the students’ experience doing the work. Finally, performances of understanding give evidence of students’ learning by providing work that is available for inspection by both teacher and student. Not every performance of understanding uses rubrics. For those that do,

however, rubrics support all three functions (showing, developing, and giving evidence of learning).

How to use rubrics to share learning targets and criteria for success

Use rubrics to share learning targets and criteria for success with students when the learning target requires thinking, writing, analyzing, demonstrating complex skills, or constructing complex products. These are the kinds of learning targets for which checklists or other simple devices cannot fully represent the learning outcomes you intend students to reach. This section presents several strategies for using rubrics to develop in students’ minds a conception of what it is they are supposed to learn and the criteria by which they will know to what degree they have learned it. Use one or more of these strategies, or design your own.

Self-ReflectIon

How do you share learning targets with your

students? Do you ever use rubrics as part of this

communication? Besides giving the students the

rubrics, what do you do? What have you learned

from doing this?

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Ask students to pose clarifying questions about the rubrics

If rubrics are well constructed, and if students understand the performance criteria and quality levels encoded into them, then the Proficient level of the rubrics describes what learning looks like. An obvious but often overlooked strategy for finding out how students think about anything, including rubrics, is to ask them what is puzzling (Chap‑ puis & Stiggins, 2002; Moss & Brookhart, 2009). Here is an organized way to do that:

• Give students copies of the rubrics. Ask them, in pairs, to discuss what the rubrics mean, proceeding one criterion at a time.

• As they talk, have them write down questions. These should be questions the pairs are not able to resolve themselves.

• Try to resolve the questions with peers. Put two or three pairs together for groups of four or six. Again, students write down any questions they still can’t resolve.

• Collect the final list of questions and discuss them as a whole group. Sometimes these questions will illuminate unfamiliar terms or concepts, or unfamiliar attributes of work. Sometimes the questions will illuminate a lack of clarity in the rubrics and result in editing the rubrics.

Ask students to state the rubrics in their own words

The classic comprehension activity is to put something in your own words. Reading teachers have beginning readers retell stories. Teachers at all grade levels give students directions and, to check for understanding, say, “What are you going to do?” Friends and relatives, when finding you cannot tell them what they said, become justifiably annoyed and snap, “Weren’t you listening?” Asking students to state the rubrics in their own words is more than just finding “student‑friendly language.” It is a comprehension activity. Having students state rubrics in their own words will help them understand the rubrics and will give you evidence of their understanding.

Below are several ways to have students state rubrics in their own words. Select the one that fits your students’ needs and the content you are teaching. Or, inspired by one of these methods, design your own.

Rubric translator. Put students together in pairs and give them your rubrics. If possible, also provide them with a sample of work at each level. Give them a blank template that matches the rubrics you gave them, which will look like an empty chart. Alternatively, you can use a worksheet like the example in Figure 9.1. Fill in the top row

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figure 9.1 Rubric “translator” template

and have the students write in the bottom row. You will need one diagram like this for each criterion.

Have students discuss each criterion in turn, using these questions or other similar questions appropriate to the rubrics under consideration: • How many criteria are there? This question ensures students can find the criteria on

the rubric. • What are the names of each criterion, and what do these words mean? This question

focuses the students on the meaning of the criteria as traits or qualities before they begin writing.

• For each criterion in turn, going one at a time, read the descriptions of work along the whole range of progress. Discuss what elements are described and how they change from level to level. For each criterion, students should do this for the range of performance‑level descriptions before they start to write.

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• Put the level descriptions in your own words, varying the same elements from level to level as the teacher’s rubrics did. Students should discuss the wording with their partners until they agree on what to write.

• If work samples have been provided, do the new “translated” rubrics still match the work at the intended levels? This is a check on the rephrasing, so that students can make sure their translations preserved the original meaning.

Ready-steady-pair-share. Moss and Brookhart (2012) describe this strategy for having students discuss rubrics in their own words in order to understand their learning targets and criteria for success. This strategy begins with understanding the rubrics and carries through their use with a single performance. Here are the steps involved:

• Give a rubric to students before you give them an assignment. The assignment should be a performance of understanding; that is, it should be a clear instance of demon‑ strating the knowledge and skills that you intend for students to learn.

• In pairs, students take turns explaining the rubric to their partners. This step lasts until the students think they understand how the rubric applies to their work on the assignment they are about to do.

• Students begin the assignment. Students do not need to remain in their “rubric pairs” to work but should work on the assignment however it is designed—individually, in other groups, or whatever.

• Halfway through the assignment, students return to their rubric partners and explain how what they are doing meets the criteria and performance levels they discussed at the beginning. Students may question each other about their work and their explanations.

• Students finish the assignment. Students go back to work individually or in their work groups, however the assignment is designed.

• When students have finished the assignment, they return to their rubric partners and explain how what they have done meets the criteria and desired performance level. After partners are satisfied with each other’s explanations, students turn in the work. They may turn in the results of this final peer evaluation as well.

Student co-constructed rubrics. Involving students in constructing rubrics is an excellent way to help them feel ownership of both their learning in general and their achievement or accomplishment on specific assignments and assessments and to help them learn more at the same time. The reason is that the criteria for good work are part of the broader concept of what it means to know and be able to do something.

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Different procedures have been described for co‑constructing rubrics (Andrade, Du, & Mycek, 2010; Arter & Chappuis, 2006; Nitko & Brookhart, 2011). Having stu‑ dents co‑construct rubrics is like the bottom‑up method of developing general rubrics described in Chapter 3, using student input. The balance between the amount of student direction and the amount of teacher guidance will vary. For some very familiar skills, student input can furnish all or most of the ideas needed for identifying criteria and per‑ formance‑level descriptions, and the teacher can be a facilitator. For less familiar skills, student input can be part of a dialogue with the teacher. Teacher guidance will come in the form of asking probing questions of students and also contributing ideas to the mix.

Therefore, the steps below for student co‑construction of rubrics are a general‑ ization of the major actions different authors have described. These steps need to be adapted to the students’ content knowledge and skills and to their familiarity with the content and with rubric development. In some cases, the teacher may add information or suggestions; in others, the students can do most of the process themselves. I have used different versions myself, depending on these aspects of the context.

• Identify the content knowledge and skills the rubrics will be assessing. For co‑con‑ structed rubrics, the knowledge and skills should be something students are already somewhat familiar with—for example, writing an effective term paper that requires library and Internet research.

• Give students some sample work. Have students review the work. For short pieces of writing—for example, a brief essay—the work can be read aloud. Or students can look over the examples in pairs or small groups.

• Students brainstorm their responses to the work in terms of strengths and weak- nesses. The more specific the responses are, the better. For example, “The report answered all my questions about stars and raised some new ones I hadn’t thought of” is more specific than “It was a good report”; or “I didn’t understand the explana‑ tion of how stable stars burn” is more specific than “The report wasn’t clear.”

• Students categorize the strengths and weaknesses in terms of the attributes they describe. The teacher may have to guide students here so the attributes are not attributes of the task (for example, cover, introduction, body, references) but rather aspects of the learning that was supposed to occur (for example, understanding of the content, communication of the content, clarity and completeness of explanation, and so on).

• Further discussion and wordsmithing of the attribute categories continue until there is agreement on criteria for the rubric. Attributes can be grouped and ungrouped until

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they express criteria at the appropriate level of generality. Attributes that are not important for the learning to be assessed may be removed from the list of criteria. For example, handwriting may be an attribute that was noted but, upon discussion, found to be unrelated to the content and skills the rubrics are concentrating on.

• For each criterion, students discuss what elements should be described and how they might change from performance level to performance level. As this discussion pro‑ ceeds, record the results as drafts of descriptions of performance at each level. One effective way of drafting performance‑level descriptions is to start with the descrip‑ tion of ideal work and “back down” the quality for each level below it. The “rubric machine” in Figure 9.2, or something like it, may help with this. A separate template of this sort is needed for each criterion.

• When students arrive at a draft rubric, they apply it to the original work samples. Addi‑ tional work samples may be used here as well. Students note where questions arise and use these observations to revise the rubric.

Ask students to match samples of work to rubrics

Matching samples of work to rubrics is one way of building up by induction student concepts of what the criteria mean. Identifying attributes and distinguishing examples from nonexamples are classic concept‑development strategies.

Sorting work. Give students rubrics for an assignment demonstrating the knowl‑ edge and skills students are about to learn. Also give students several examples of work ranging from very poor to very good. Students sort work according to the criteria and performance‑level descriptions in the rubrics. When students see several differ‑ ent examples of the same criteria, they begin to generalize meaning. They can begin to separate critical defining attributes of the criteria. For example, for the criterion of understanding planetary orbits, students might observe a critical attribute to be that the planets are placed in their appropriate orbits in a model of the solar system. They will begin to distinguish critical attributes of the work from irrelevant attributes. For example, what the model planets are made out of might be an irrelevant attribute, as some perhaps are made out of modeling clay and others are made out of papier‑mâché. Students should discuss the attributes they are focusing on, and why, to help solidify their concepts of the criteria and performance levels.

Clear and cloudy. As an extension of sorting work according to the various perfor‑ mance‑level descriptions, you can ask students to identify which pieces of work they had no trouble identifying with a particular level of a given criterion (“clear”) and which

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figure 9.2 template for Student-constructed Rubrics

pieces of work were difficult to evaluate or identify with a particular level of a given crite‑ rion (“cloudy”). Then discuss, again in pairs, small groups, or whole group, the reasons for these designations. The “clear” and “cloudy” designations and discussion will illumi‑ nate what the criteria mean and how students are understanding them.

Highlighters or colored pencils. Students use highlighters or colored pencils to mark qualities described in the rubrics and on sample work. For example, if the rubric says “Identifies the author’s purpose and supports this conclusion with details from the text,” the student would highlight this statement in the rubrics and at the location in his paper identifying the author’s purpose and supporting details. Students learn what the criteria and performance‑level descriptions mean by locating and reviewing specific instances in the work. A version of this activity can also be used with the students’ own papers for formative assessment (see Chapter 10). When used with sample work before

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students have begun their own work, students can talk about what they highlighted and why in pairs, small groups, or as a whole class. Comments from these discussions can be used as an introduction to the knowledge and skills students will be learning.

Explore and teach one criterion at a time

To introduce students to criteria for new learning targets, handle one criterion at a time (Arter & Chappuis, 2006; Moss & Brookhart, 2009). Adapt any of the previous strategies to one criterion, setting aside the others for the time being, or use one of the following strategies.

Strategic goal setting. Give students a rubric before they do an activity or assign‑ ment. Address one criterion at a time, with a minilesson if the concept is new. Ask students to plan a separate strategy for successful performance on that criterion. Have them record their strategies right on their copies of the rubric. When work on the activ‑ ity or assignment begins, have students use their rubrics, annotated with their personal strategies, to monitor and regulate their work.

Coming to terms. Rubrics often contain terms that are new to students. In small groups, have students read all the performance‑level descriptions for one criterion and make a list of all the unfamiliar words in the descriptions, at any level, for that criterion. Then have students define, describe, and find examples of those terms. If the listing of words is done in groups, the groups can exchange their lists to do the definitions, descriptions, and examples. Alternatively, a merged list can be created, and then one or several terms can be assigned to each group. They can share their definitions, descrip‑ tions, and examples as class presentations or small‑group presentations.

Summing up

This chapter has explored ways to use rubrics for sharing learning targets and cri‑ teria for success with students. This is the first, and foundational, strategy for formative assessment. It is also a foundational strategy for effective instruction. Although rubrics are not the only way to communicate to students what they are about to learn, they are an excellent resource for doing so. Rubrics make especially good vehicles for sharing learning targets when the target is complex and not just a matter of recall of informa‑ tion. The reason is that rubrics bring together sets of relevant criteria. The nature of a complex understanding or skill is that several qualities must operate at one time.

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10 Rubrics and Formative Assessment: Feedback and Student Self-Assessment

Formative assessment is an active and intentional learning process that partners the teacher and students to continuously and systematically gather evidence of learning with the express goal of improving student achievement (Moss & Brookhart, 2009, p. 6). Formative assessment is about forming learning—that is, it is assessment that gives information that moves students forward. If no further learning occurred, then whatever the intention, an assessment was not formative.

Chapter 9 described how to use rubrics to help clarify learning targets for students—the foundational strategy of formative assessment. This chapter covers the use of rubrics for giving feedback that feeds forward, for supporting student self‑assessment and goal setting, and for helping

students ask effective questions about their work.

How to use rubrics for teacher and peer feedback

Because rubrics enumerate the criteria for learning and describe performance along a continuum for each one, they are a good framework for feedback. This section

Self-ReflectIon

How do you use rubrics for feedback and student

self-assessment in your classroom?

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presents several strategies for using rubrics as the basis for teacher and peer feedback. Use one of them or design similar strategies that work in your context.

Teacher feedback on rubrics-based feedback sheets

If you are using well‑written, general, analytic rubrics (as I recommend for most purposes) for sharing with students and for feedback, you can photocopy the rubrics themselves, leaving space for comments. Provide feedback by circling the performance level for each criterion that best matches the student’s work in its current form. Then you will not have to rewrite the general description, which is already circled. Instead, use what time you have available for written feedback to write something specific to the student’s work.

For example, if the class is working on the ideas in their writing, the teacher may give feedback on writing using the Ideas rubric in the 6+1 Trait Writing rubrics (see Appendix A). If she has circled “Support for topic is incidental or confusing, not focused,” the specific comments might tell the student what she found confusing or why the supporting details did not seem, in fact, to support the topic. This combination of general feedback from the rubric and specific feedback in writing will be enough for many students to see the way forward and improve their work in revision. For a few students, if conferencing is needed—for example, if the teacher wants to ask a student about the logic of including some details or check for understanding of story details that seemed confusing—much of the preliminary information is already present in the circled portions of the general rubrics and in the specific written feedback.

Yellow and blue make green

Similar to the “highlighters or colored pencils” method presented in Chapter 9 for helping students understand the learning target and criteria they are aiming for, you can also use highlighters for teacher feedback on student work and student self‑assess‑ ment. Ask students to use the highlighters as before, highlighting a statement from the description of performance in the rubric and highlighting where they identify this quality, but this time in their own work instead of in sample work. They can then assess whether they are satisfied with the evidence they have highlighted or want to change, augment, or revise it.

Two‑color highlighting (Chappuis, 2009) can be used to compare teacher and self‑assessment perspectives on the same work. Students use yellow highlighters, and

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teachers use blue highlighters. Where there is agreement on what constitutes evidence for performance as described in the rubric, the resulting highlights will be green.

This is not just a coloring‑book exercise, however. Important information comes with the comparison. If most of the highlighted area is green, both the student and the teacher are interpreting the work in the same way and more or less agreeing on its quality. If most of the highlighted area is yellow, the student is seeing evidence that the teacher is not. It may be that the student is not clear on the meaning of the criterion, or the student may be overvaluing the work. If most of the highlighted area is blue, the teacher is seeing evidence that the student is not. The student may be not clear on the meaning of the criterion or undervaluing the work.

Any place where teacher and student perspectives vary on the worth of the stu‑ dent’s work relative to criteria can be fertile ground for written feedback from the teacher, student questioning, or conferencing. The feedback, questions, or conferences should address more than just understanding the highlighting or the description of current work. What should come next? Provide feedback on what the student can do to improve the work.

Paired-peer feedback

Peers can use rubrics to give each other feedback. The rubrics provide structure for peer discussions, making it easier for the students to focus on the criteria rather than personal reactions to the work. The rubrics also aid dialogue. As the students use the language of the rubrics to discuss each other’s work, they are developing their own con‑ ceptions of the meaning of the criteria while they are giving information to their peers.

The simplest form of peer feedback involves students working in pairs. The teacher should assign peers that are well matched in terms of interest, ability, or compatibility, depending on the particular assignment.

Peer feedback works best in a classroom where constructive criticism is viewed as an important part of learning. In a classroom characterized by a grading‑focused or eval‑ uative culture (“Whad‑ja‑get?”), peer feedback may not work well; students may hesitate to criticize their peers so as not to imply there is anything “wrong.” Try peer feedback only when you are sure that your students value opportunities to learn. If you try peer feedback and it doesn’t work very well, even after careful preparation, be prepared to ask yourself whether your students are telling you they are more focused on getting a good grade than improving their work.

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Assuming that you have a learning‑focused classroom culture, you still need to prepare students for peer feedback. Make sure that the students understand the rubrics they will be using and that they can apply them to anonymous work samples accurately. Make sure the students understand the assignments on which they will be using the rubrics for the peer feedback. Set a few important ground rules and have students explain, and even role‑play, what they mean. Use rules that make sense for your grade level, students, and content area. Here are examples of some common peer‑feedback ground rules:

When You Are Giving Peer Feedback 1. Read or view your peer’s work carefully. Talk about the work, not the

person who did the work. 2. Use terms from the rubrics to explain and describe what you see in

the work. 3. Give your own suggestions and ideas, and explain why you think these

suggestions would help improve the work. 4. Listen to your peer’s comments and questions.

When You Are Receiving Peer Feedback 1. Listen to your peer’s comments. Take time to think about them before

you respond. 2. Compare your peer’s comments to the rubrics, and decide what com‑

ments you will use in your revisions. 3. Thank your peer for the feedback.

Finally, peer feedback gets better with practice. When you use paired‑peer feedback, observe the pairs and give them feedback on their feedback, as it were. Look for, and comment on, how students use the rubrics, how clearly they describe the work, how use‑ ful their suggestions for improvement are, how supportive they are, and so on. Just as for any skill, giving and receiving peer feedback can (and should) be taught and learned.

How to use rubrics for student self-assessment and goal setting

Because rubrics encode the qualities of good work that students are shooting for, they are the appropriate reference point for students’ monitoring of their own work.

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This section presents some examples of how that might be done, and I encourage you to devise others that fit the students, content, and grade level you teach.

Strategic goal setting revisited

In Chapter 9 we talked about students using rubrics to plan a separate strategy for successful performance on each criterion and recording their strategies on their copies of the rubric. When work on the activity or assignment begins, have students use their rubrics, annotated with their personal strategies, to monitor and regulate their work. They can use any number of methods for this. Here are a couple of them.

Quick-check. Each time students work on their assignments or projects, set aside one minute at the end of work time. For each strategy students have identified, have them check the following:

• Did I do this today? • Did it help me?

For example, consider a student in a writing class that was using the 6+1 Trait Writing rubrics. One student’s strategy for improving his performance (and learning) under the Word Choice criterion was “I will check a thesaurus any time a word isn’t as powerful, precise, or engaging as I would like.” Thus the student would ask himself, “Did I use a thesaurus in my writing today? Did it help me choose more powerful, precise, or engag‑ ing words?” Students can make their own charts to record these checks, or they can make a mark next to where they have written their strategies on their rubrics.

Journaling. In classes where regular journaling is part of student self‑reflection, students can record their strategies and their reflections upon the use of those strategies as part of their regular self‑reflection. Here the questions are similar—Did I actually use the strategy I planned to and did it help me improve my work?—but there is room for reflecting on what specifically the strategy helped (or did not help) the student do and why that might be the case. Teachers may or may not read these reflections. The intent is for students to exercise metacognition, to think about their thinking.

Think-pair-don’t share. Give students five minutes at the end of a work session to work in pairs. Each partner will describe the strategies that were planned, whether the strategies were used, to what degree the strategies helped, and why this might be so. This activity is a sort of debriefing of the work session, strategy use, and perceptions of learning. Similar to the conventional think‑pair‑share activity, students work with partners for this self‑reflection session. Unlike a conventional think‑pair‑share activity,

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however, students do not share the results of their paired conversations with the whole class. The teacher may speak with one or more of the pairs as they are reflecting, to help them focus, as needed.

Charting progress

Charting progress means two different things. Students think of their progress toward completing individual assignments or projects, and they think of progress more broadly as learning. It is a good idea to have students chart at least the latter (learning progress) and sometimes the former.

Charting progress on an individual assignment, with rubrics. Give students the rubrics. Midway through the work, ask them to mark the rubrics at the level where they are for each criterion. Students can place a vertical line or a large dot at the appro‑ priate level on each criterion. This can be done individually or in pairs. When the assign‑ ment or project is finished but before students turn it in, ask them to self‑assess their finished product with the rubrics. Then have them draw an arrow from the first dot or line to the second, right on the rubrics, to make a graphic illustration of their progress.

Charting longer-term learning progress. General rubrics that are used across tasks can be used for longer‑term charting of progress during a report period, a semes‑ ter, or even a year. Depending on the purpose, students can use general rubrics for foundational skills (Chapter 4) or standards‑based grading rubrics (Chapter 6) to keep track of their learning of those skills or standards. Have students construct a histogram with time on the horizontal axis and performance levels on the vertical axis.

Figure 10.1 gives an example of one student tracking her progress on the criterion “Writing an Explanation” in the Math Problem‑Solving Rubric in Figure 4.1. Additional charts would be needed for the other criteria in the rubric. Each performance is listed, and then the student colors the bars in the graph to the height corresponding to her developing ability to show mathematical knowledge.

I want to make several very important points right away, because such a chart is prone to misinterpretation in classrooms that are grade oriented rather than learning oriented. First, this chart is for formative assessment and represents the student’s practice and learning. It does not represent final outcomes, except perhaps that the last entry recorded shows the answer to the question “Where am I now?” The entries would not be averaged or otherwise summarized into a grade. This chart is the student’s way of keeping track of her progress as she is learning. She will eventually receive a grade from a summative assessment of mathematical knowledge.

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figure 10.1 example of charting Progress with Rubrics

WRItInG An eXPlAnAtIon

5 • I write what I did

and why I did it. • I explain each step

of my work. • I use math words

and strategy names.

• I write the answer in a complete sen- tence at the end of my explanation.

4 • I write what I did

and a little about why I did it.

• I explain most of my work.

3 • I write a little

about what I did or why I did it, but not both.

• I explain some of my work.

2 • I write something

that doesn’t make sense.

• I write an unclear answer.

1 • I don’t write

anything to explain how I solved the problem.

oct. 7 Problem set #1

oct. 14 Problem set #2

oct. 21 Problem set #3

oct. 28 Problem set #4

nov. 4 Problem set #5

nov. 11 Problem set #6

Note: This example uses the Math Problem-Solving Rubric shown in Figure 4.1.

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Feedback and Student Self-Assessment | 109

Second, the assessments or learning opportunities themselves are not “equal,” and it is therefore mathematically inappropriate to summarize this chart by averaging. What is constant is the existence of the descriptions of performance for the various levels of Writing an Explanation, which are shown on the vertical axis. These performance levels describe the student’s “steps” in learning. The assessments are simply opportunities for the student to practice, learn, and show what she knows. The purpose of the chart is for the student to see a learning curve. Bars that rise indicate progress. Bars that stay the same or fall indicate lack of progress. The graphic representation helps students focus on the performance levels and plan their next steps.

How to use rubrics to help students ask effective questions about their work

The genius of rubrics lies in their two main features: the criteria and descriptions of performance across a range of quality levels. The “main ideas” students need in order to understand quality are named by the criteria themselves. The elements in the descriptions flesh out these criteria with “supporting ideas” or aspects of the work that contribute to overall quality. Both of these help students ask effective questions about their work.

Simple self-reflection with rubrics

For experienced, self‑regulated learners, simply give students dedicated time for self‑reflection at designated points during their work, and ask them to use the rubrics to do it. Appropriate points in the work will vary. For writing, they come after the first draft and after subsequent revisions. For multipart projects, they come as different compo‑ nents of the project are drafted. For term papers, they come after each phase has been attempted (draft thesis or research question, library/Internet research, outline, writing of sections of the paper, and so on). Effective, self‑regulated students can use rubrics to ask themselves whether their work contains the qualities they are shooting for. Many, if not most, students need more scaffolding and structure in order to use rubrics to ask effective questions about their work.

Scaffolded self-reflection with rubrics

Rubrics with structure like the Math Problem‑Solving Rubric in Figure 4.1 make asking effective questions about work very straightforward. Ask students to focus first

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110 | How to Create and Use Rubrics

on the top category (or the category they are shooting for, if not the top one), and turn the elements into questions:

• Do I figure out the correct answer? • Do I solve the problem with no mistakes? • Do I use all the important information from the problem? [and so on]

For rubrics that do not use such straightforward, student‑friendly terms, you can do one of two things. You can construct student‑friendly rubrics with the students, with the constraint that the descriptions have to be “I” statements that can be turned into “Do I” questions. That exercise in itself is good for helping students learn exactly what their target is (see Chapter 9).

Alternatively, you can have students use the criteria and descriptive elements in rubrics to pose their own questions. For example, Level 4 of the Content category in the rubric for written projects in Figure 4.2 says:

The thesis is clear. A large amount and variety of material and evidence support the thesis. All material is relevant. This material includes details. Information is accurate. Appropriate sources were consulted.

Brainstorm with students how questions can be written from these statements. If you start with “The thesis is clear,” students might suggest questions such as these:

• Is my thesis clear? • How clear is my thesis? • How do I know my thesis is clear? • How can I make my thesis more clear?

You can continue with each element in the description until you have a set of reflection questions for students to use. Or if your students get the hang of this quickly, you can use a few rounds of question generating to demonstrate how to turn descriptions into questions about work, and then have students write their own questions as they reflect.

Feedback on student self-reflection

Asking effective questions about their own work is the first key to supporting students’ effective self‑reflection. The second, of course, is answering those questions. As students are learning to self‑reflect, give them feedback on how well they answer the questions. Feedback on student self‑reflection is generally oral, but it can be written

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Feedback and Student Self-Assessment | 111

if students use a formal self‑reflection format. Feedback on student self‑reflection need not be given to all students all the time. Feedback on student self‑reflection is not used for grades.

Parker and Breyfogle (2011) describe a process of self‑reflection that began with Ms. Parker’s students using the Math Problem‑ Solving Rubric to evaluate three anonymous pieces of student work. Later in the project, the class evaluated anonymous work samples from a student’s Week 1 and Week 4 work and talked about how the rubric described the change. Then Ms. Parker used small‑group time to elicit more details about the students’ observations of the work by asking probing questions herself. Finally, she used individual conferences to ask students to apply the rubric to their own work. The follow‑up ques‑ tions she used (for example, “You wrote what you did, but did you say why you did it?”) functioned as feedback for the students, feeding them forward into their next steps in observation (“No, I just wrote what I did”), and finally to an action plan (writing why).

Summing up

One of the advantages of rubrics is their usefulness for formative assessment. Chapter 9 explored ways to use rubrics to share learning targets and criteria for success with students. Chapter 10 explored ways to use rubrics to develop student work and to give evidence of learning that students can use for further improvement. When students have written, drafted, practiced, honed, and polished, eventually it is time for a grade to certify the level of achievement or accomplishment the students have reached. Chapter 11 discusses ways to use rubrics in grading.

Self-ReflectIon

How can you involve students more in self-

reflection in your classroom?

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11 How to Use Rubrics for Grading

Most of this book has been about how to write or select high‑quality rubrics and how to use them formatively with students, as an aid to learning. I include this chapter on grading to complete the picture. Sometimes teachers use rubrics well until they get to grading, and then meaning falls apart because rubric levels are not the same kind of

numbers as the test scores and percentages most teachers grew up with. Note that this chapter is not a complete treatise on grading, just a discussion of how using rubrics plays out in the grading process. Readers who would like a more complete treatment of grading should consult Brookhart (2011) or O’Connor (2011).

What is grading?

We commonly use the term grading to mean two different things. We say, “I graded that assignment” or “I graded that test,” meaning a grade was assigned to an individual assessment. We also use grading to refer to the process of summarizing a set of individ‑ ual grades to arrive at a grade for a report card. Report card grades are usually assigned either to a standard or to a subject area, depending on whether the report cards are standards based or traditional. In this chapter, I talk about using rubrics for grading individual assessments and also about summarizing a set of grades that includes rubrics.

Self-ReflectIon

How have you handled using rubrics in grading?

What questions or issues have arisen for you?

How did you resolve them?

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Rubric-based grades and percentages—An important difference

Rubrics typically use short scales, often three to six levels. The meaning of the distance between the levels is not the same as for a test, where one point usually means one tiny increment on a scale, either from a right‑wrong question or one point on a multipoint question. Rubrics use ordered categories—descriptions of performance along a continuum of quality—for each criterion. For this reason, turning rubrics into percentages, which many people do out of habit or out of the expectations of gradebook software, changes the meaning. For example, a 3 on a four‑point rubric typically means “Proficient.” Three out of four, however, is 75 percent, which in most grading scales is a C and sometimes even a D. Neither of those grades means “Proficient.”

The goal for all the grading recommendations in this chapter is to have the final grade end up representing, with as much fidelity as possible, the information about student learning contained in individual grades or in the set of grades being combined for a report card grade. Those who are interested in more of the quantitative reasoning behind these recommendations should consult Nitko and Brookhart (2011).

How to use rubrics to grade individual assessments

Use the same rubrics to grade the assignment that students have been using for‑ matively as part of their understanding of their learning target and for monitoring and improving their work. I hope for most readers this is a foregone conclusion.

If students have used rubrics formatively, as they worked, the main “grade” for their assignment should communicate what level they finally achieved on each criterion. This is the information that should be most meaningful to them because it will include descrip‑ tions of their work. One good way to do this is to circle the performance‑level descrip‑ tion that applies to the final work, for each criterion. You don’t need to take the time to write that general description, because it is already printed in the rubrics. With the time you save, you can make a few comments specific to the student’s particular work—not a lot, as the most effective time for feedback is before work is graded, not after.

If you need an overall grade for a performance assessment graded with analytic rubrics, you can combine the levels achieved for each criterion. Whether you summarize the per‑ formance for each criterion into a total‑performance description or not, students should see how they scored on each criterion. Criterion‑level results provide more useful information for students than one amalgamated score. However, sometimes you need to summarize an overall grade for one assessment for later use in a final grade. Sometimes you don’t, as when each criterion is recorded as a grade under a different standard. For

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114 | How to Create and Use Rubrics

example, one rubric score might be recorded under the standard for science content, one for inquiry skills, and one for communication.

If you do need one overall grade (for example, “Science”) and must summarize an assessment with one overall score, use the median or mode, not the mean, of the scores for each criterion. Figure 11.1 summarizes how to calculate mean, median, and mode, the three most common ways to combine more than one score into a typical score. The figure summarizes all three, even though the median is recommended, so you can see how all three summarize “typical” performance but do so in different ways.

figure 11.1 three Ways to Summarize a Set of Scores: Mean, Median, and Mode

Measure of Central Tendency Example

On a six-point analytic rubric with four criteria, a student scores 6, 5, 3, 3.

Mean

• The sum of all scores divided by the number of scores

• Also known as the arithmetic average

Mean = 4.25

(6 + 5 + 3 + 3)/4 = 4.25

Median

• The score that has half of the scores above and half below it (even if it’s between two scores)

• Also known as the 50th percentile

Median = 4

(line scores up in order first) 6 5 3 3 ^ 4

Mode

• The most frequently occurring score in the set of scores

• Sometimes helpful to think of it as the “most popular” score

Mode = 3

(line scores up in order first)

6 5 3 3

Figure 11.1 uses as an example a performance that was scored with a six‑point analytic rubric with four criteria, on which one student scored 6, 5, 3, and 3, respectively. The example assumes all four criteria were of equal weight, which will not always be the case. To weight a criterion more heavily than others to calculate the mean, multiply the weight times the score. For example, to double the weight of the criterion on which

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How to Use Rubrics for Grading | 115

a student scored 6, for the mean, use 12 instead of 6, changing the mean to 5.75. To weight a criterion more heavily than others to calculate the median, repeat it. That is, use two 6s in the lineup, changing the median to 5.

I recommend the median for most summarizing purposes. The median is less prone to being pulled by extreme scores than is the mean, as the examples in Figure 11.1 show. And the median is more stable than the mode, as the examples also show. Sup‑ pose one of the 3s in the example had been a 5? One change in one criterion, probably not representing a hugely different performance overall, would change the overall score by two points—a lot on a six‑point scale. Plus the median is easy to calculate—for most analytical rubrics you can just count in your head. In the next section, when I will recom‑ mend using the median for summarizing sets of grades on individual assessments, you can let a spreadsheet do your median calculations.

How to combine individual rubric-based grades for a report card grade

The method you choose for combining grades should depend on two things: what types of grades you need to combine and what meaning you want your report card grade to convey. Ask yourself these questions:

• What kinds of individual grades am I going to summarize for the report card grade? Are all your individual grades on scales from rubrics, or are your individual grades a mixture of rubrics and percentages? If all your grades are from rubrics, are they all on the same scale? Or were some four‑point rubrics, some six‑point, and so on? This makes a difference in how you combine them. It’s the familiar “apples and oranges” logic. Before you combine numbers meaningfully, they should be on the same scale.

• How must I report the students’ grades on the report card? Does your report card use letter grades (for example, A, B, C, D, F) or percentages or standards‑based performance categories? This distinction makes a difference in how you combine individual grades as well.

• What is my report card grade supposed to mean? I’ll take it as a given that your report card grade is supposed to reflect achievement (as opposed to effort, attendance, and so on). Is achievement reported by subject or by standard on your report cards? The reason this makes a difference for combining grades is that if achieve‑ ment is separated by standard, you can privilege the most recent evidence; as the student improves on the standard, the grade will go up, even if it started low, because it represents learning in the same domain. If achievement is reported

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116 | How to Create and Use Rubrics

by subject, then the order of the evidence makes less difference, because differ‑ ent standards are covered in different units. Doing poorly on one standard at the beginning of the report period is not subject to revision because of doing well on a different standard toward the end of the report period.

You can use Figure 11.2 to help you decide on a method to use for summarizing your students’ individual grades into their report card grades. You will notice in Figure 11.2 that the methods follow three general steps. Each of these steps is worked out in different ways depending on the answers you gave to the three questions (what kinds of grades, how must you report, and what the reported grade is supposed to mean).

The figure lists each question in turn, and then displays two flow charts that start with the answer to the first question. All the recommended methods accomplish these objectives:

• Identify the set of individual grades you are going to summarize, based on what the report card grade is supposed to mean.

• Make sure the individual grades to be summarized are on the same scale. • Use a summarizing method that expresses in one grade the “typical” achievement

level shown in the set of individual grades.

The following sections discusses each of these points in greater detail. Identify the set of individual grades you are going to summarize, based on

what the report card grade is supposed to mean. Usually report card grades are supposed to reflect achievement of a standard or achievement in a subject. It is impor‑ tant to make sure you have recorded grades organized by standard or subject, respec‑ tively. That sounds obvious; in fact, it sounds like something you shouldn’t need advice about. However, it’s worth mentioning, especially in a book on rubrics.

If you used analytic rubrics for a project and are grading by subject, typically you will summarize the set of analytic rubrics for the project into one overall score, as discussed in the previous section of this chapter. However, if you used analytic rubrics for a project and are grading by standard, you may need to keep one or more of the criteria separate. For example, if students wrote a report on an event in history and its effects, and you graded it with the General Rubric for Written Projects in Figure 4.2, the “Content” and “Reasoning & Evidence” scores might be put together to be indicators of a standard about understanding and analyzing historical events, and the “Clarity” score might be an indicator of a standard about communicating about historical events or a standard about expository writing.

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How to Use Rubrics for Grading | 117 fi

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ric s us e th e sa m e pr of ic ie nc y

sc al e (e .g ., 4 le ve ls w he re 3 m

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at a lre ad y ar e

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f a na ly tic

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118 | How to Create and Use Rubrics

Therefore, it’s very important to know what specific set of information you will need for your report card grade before you record your individual grades. If you have recorded individual grades by standard or subject, as needed, you can easily calculate meaning‑ ful report card grades. If you have not, or if you have made overall grades out of rubric results that should have been kept separate, you will not have the right information at hand when it’s time to calculate final grades. Even worse, if you recorded improperly orga‑ nized grades into gradebook software that calculates final grades automatically, you may not even be aware that your final grades do not mean what you intended them to mean.

Begin the report period by selecting the right organization method for your grade records. It’s not hard to organize ahead of time. It’s very difficult, and sometimes impos‑ sible, to reorganize mixed‑up results.

Make sure the individual grades to be summarized are on the same scale. Here, the term scale means the numbers or levels in which the individual grade is expressed. There might be several different kinds of scales within the set of grades you identified as the set to be summarized for one report card grade. For example, you might have percentages, some four‑point rubrics, some six‑point rubrics, and so on. Obviously a 4 conveys very different information about achievement on those different scales, and yet if you were to average them, those different meanings would become muddled.

If you have used rubrics with the same proficiency scale for every graded assessment, whether it was a test or performance assessment or project or assignment of any type, your individual grades are already on the same scale for grading purposes. Chapter 6 described how to create this kind of rubric.

If all your recorded grades for individual assignments are from rubrics, but the rubrics have not been designed such that the levels have the same meaning, or if the rubrics do not all have the same number of levels, or both, you need to put them all on the same scale before you combine them. This follows the “comparing apples and oranges” principle. You need to make sure all your rubrics are apples (or oranges, or bananas for that mat‑ ter); that is, that they are all comparable and can be meaningfully combined.

Whether your set of individual grades is by subject or by standard, if you are report- ing in letter grades (for example, A, B, C, D, F) or performance categories (for example, Advanced, Proficient, Nearing Proficiency, Not Yet), or in any other short scale that is really a list of ordered categories of achievement, the easiest thing to do is to transform each individual grade into a category on that scale. Then when you combine the grades, your result will already be on the scale you need, and you’ll save yourself having to do a

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second transformation. I recommend you do this at the time you record each individual grade, but if you haven’t, do the transformation before calculating the report card grade.

For example, consider Figure 11.3. The top section lists the grades for five assess‑ ments for four students. These grades illustrate a common situation that occurs when teachers have used a mixture of tests or quizzes graded with percentages and perfor‑ mance assessments graded with rubrics. Using multiple, different measures is a good practice. It allows for assessing different aspects of a content domain, at different cogni‑ tive levels, and with different performance modalities. It does, however, create a grading situation with incompatible scales, as illustrated in Figure 11.3. Take a moment to verify for yourself that if you simply “averaged” the numbers (added them up and divided by 5), you would get uninterpretable results.

figure 11.3 example of Summarizing by converting Individual Grades

to the Scale Used for Reporting

Original Grades for Individual Assessments

Student Assessment

#1 Assessment

#2 Assessment

#3 Assessment

#4 Assessment

Aiden 79 2 74 3 4

Brittney 68 2 69 2 3

Carlos 93 4 98 5 6

Daniela 88 3 92 5 5

Transformed Grades, with Report Card Grade (median)

Student Assessment

#1 Assessment

#2 Assessment

#3 Assessment

#4 Assessment

#5 Report

Card Grade

Aiden C C C C B C

Brittney D C D D C D

Carlos A A A A- A A

Daniela B B A A- A- A-

Note: The original grades for Assessments #1 and #3 were in percentages. The original grades for Assessment #2 were on four-point rubrics with 3 indicating Proficient. The original grades for Assessments #4 and #5 were on six-point rubrics with 4 and above indicating Proficient. The transformed grades were put on a letter-grade scale (A, B, C, D, F ) because they were to be summarized into a letter grade for the report card.

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The solution to this problem is to discern the meaning of each individual grade in terms of the grading scale you must use for reporting so that you can meaningfully combine the results. In this illustration, the report card requires letter grades. If the report card required reporting proficiency levels (Advanced, Proficient, and so on), the procedure would be the same but instead of converting to letters, you would convert to proficiency levels.

In this example, Assessments #1 and #3 were tests, and their results were in per‑ centages. The percentages were transformed to letter grades using the scale 90–100=A, 80–89=B, and so on, for ease of illustration. You would, of course, use whatever scale was in place in your district or school to do this transformation.

Assessment #2 was a performance assessment scored with four‑point rubrics, where 3 was Proficient. These rubric results were transformed to letter grades by a judgment call, that 3 (Proficient) represented B‑level work, 4 (Advanced) represented A‑level work, and 2 (Nearing Proficiency) represented C‑level work. Assessments #4 and #5 were performance assessments scored with six‑point rubrics, similar to the 6+1 Trait Writing rubrics, where 4 and above meant Proficient. In this example, to be consistent with the decision to use a B to represent Proficient, the six‑point rubric was transformed as follows: 6=A, 5=A‑, 4=B, 3=C, 2=D, 1=F. As for the percentage transfor‑ mations, you would use the conventions in your school or district to transform the rubric results into letters, which would not have to match the transformations in this example.

If you are using rubrics but your report card grades must be expressed in percentages, that’s a stickier wicket. Technically you can’t add precision (more distinctions or gra‑ dations in the scale) that wasn’t there in the first place. So mapping a small number of performance categories from rubrics onto a scale with 101 possible points (0 to 100) is not mathematically an appropriate thing to do. If you have to end up with percentages, however, it won’t help you much if I just say don’t use percentages with rubrics. You would be technically correct but left with no way to report students’ grades.

Therefore, I suggest that if you have to report in percentages you work to change your district’s reporting system and in the meantime know that you are compromising for the sake of following required policy. If you have to report final grades in percent‑ ages, it’s better to use judgments about student learning than mathematics that distorts the meaning about student learning. Whether all your recorded grades for individual assignments are from rubrics or some are from rubrics and others are expressed in per‑ centages, you need to put them all on the percentage scale before you combine them.

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The purpose is to make sure that they are all comparable and can be combined to yield a meaningful result on the percentage scale.

If you know you need percentages, you can get such scores from rubrics in one of two ways. You can calculate percentages mathematically from your rubrics, or you can use a conversion chart based on judgment.

To calculate percentages from rubrics (I cringe even writing that! What a horrible position to be in!), make sure all the rubrics you use for assignments have at least 20 total points. Thirty is even better. Using at least 20 total points helps address the prob‑ lem of percentage meanings not coinciding with rubric meanings, which was explained in the introduction to this chapter. (Recall the example that three out of four is 75 per‑ cent, which is not “Proficient” on most percentage grading scales).

You won’t be able to avoid this problem entirely, but you can improve it a bit by using larger numbers. Five 3s, on five 4‑point rubrics, still yields 75 percent (15 out of 20 possible points). However, in the three‑out‑of‑four case, the scale jumped from 75 percent to 100 percent; it was impossible to score anything in between. With five 4‑point rubrics for a total of 20 points, there are possible scores in between (80 percent for four 3s and a 4, 85 percent for three 3s and two 4s, and so on). The bottom line is, if you have to convert rubrics to percentages—kicking and screaming at compromising information about student learning—at least do it with total points of 20 or more.

I once had a question from a teacher during a workshop on grading. She asked about rubrics in which the lowest category is a 1. Often the description of performance in the low category includes things like “Answer was unreadable” or even “No answer was given.” She was concerned that students would, in effect, be “getting points” for doing no work. That was an interesting question, but it rests on the assumption that the grades are for doing work. Grades are supposed to be measures of achievement, and they are always on arbitrary scales invented by educators. If a student scores 25 percent because of getting five 1s on an assignment scored with five 4‑point rubrics, the student still fails. In fact, that 25 percent is exactly the same as the chance (guessing) score for a multiple‑choice test with four‑option questions scored right/wrong and then converted to a percentage.

Using a conversion chart based on judgment to transform rubric scores into percentages is a bit more defensible than calculating percentages from rubric scores because the judgments are about what the scores say about student learning. It is still mathematically impossible to make scores more precise than they were in the first

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place, but at least the judgments can be thoughtful. Figure 11.4 is an example of a con‑ version chart constructed by using teacher judgment.

figure 11.4 A Judgment-Based conversion chart for Recording

Rubric Results as Percentages

Median of Scores for All Criteria on One Assessment

Judgment-Based “Percentage” Grade for That Assessment

4.0 99

3.5 92

3.0 85

2.5 79

2.0 75

1.5 67

1.0 59

The chart in Figure 11.4 reflects judgments about learning. The reasoning flowed from the premise that the 3 was supposed to reflect proficiency and should therefore end up being a “middle B” on the percentage scale used in the school. In this example, for ease of illustration we are representing percentages on a scale where 90 to 100 is an A, 80 to 89 is a B, and so on. Thus, in this conversion chart, a student with performance at the bottom level of the rubric fails but is at the top of the F range on the percentage scale. A conversion chart in a school with a different scale would have different num‑ bers. A conversion chart based on different judgments about what the four levels of performance should represent on the scale would also have different numbers.

It is best if conversion charts like this one are constructed by several teachers or a whole department or school. The more perspectives reflected in the judgments, the better. And the more agreement there is about the judgments, the easier it will be to use them and explain them to students and parents.

Finally, to end this section I want to repeat that making percentages out of rubrics is a compromise, and one I’m not happy about. Do it only if your grading policies require it.

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Use a summarizing method that expresses in one grade the “typical” achievement level shown in the set of individual grades. Once you have your set of individual grades on the same scale—“apples to apples,” if you will—you are ready to combine them. For most purposes, I recommend the median. It’s an appropriate mea‑ sure of “typical” performance when the performance measures are ordered categories. Weighting more important grades is easy when you calculate a median (for example, to double, just count the same grade twice; to triple, count it three times). The median does not give any more weight to an extreme low or high score than to any other low or high score.

If you are reporting in letter grades (for example, A, B, C, D, F) or performance catego- ries (for example, Advanced, Proficient, Nearing Proficiency, Not Yet), or in any other short scale that is really a list of ordered categories of achievement, use the median letter grade or performance category. You have already transformed each of your individual grades to the reporting scale. Before you take the median, decide if you need to weight any individual grades more than others.

If you are reporting grades by subject, with the individual assignment grades measur- ing learning on different standards, consider doubling individual grades that reflect more important standards. Or you might consider doubling individual grades that reflect more complex thinking or extended work compared with individual grades that reflect recall and literal comprehension. After you are satisfied that the weights of your indi‑ vidual grades make them contribute their due to the whole set of information, then take the median, as described above and in Figure 11.1. In the example in Figure 11.3, the decision was not to weight any one assessment more heavily than another. Each indi‑ vidual assessment counted the same. The median was used to summarize the set of five grades, and the results are shown in the column labeled “Report Card Grade.”

If you are reporting grades by standard instead of subject, with all the assignments representing learning within the same domain, you should still weight individual grades in proportion to the contribution you want them to make to the report card grade. Once you have done that, however, pause before you calculate the median and look for patterns in the individual grades over time. If the pattern looks like a learning curve— that is, it starts low, then rises, and then levels off—those later individual grades in the leveling‑off period represent current student achievement of that standard. Take the median of those.

If the pattern is the opposite of that, decreasing over time (rarer, but it happens), you might still take the median of the recent evidence, or you might take the median of

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124 | How to Create and Use Rubrics

all the individual grades to give the student the benefit of the doubt. However, you also need to find out the reason why a student went into a slump. In fact, it’s better if you notice the slump before report card time and can do something about it.

If there is no discernible pattern, take the median of all the individual grades. The case of Cort in Figure 6.4 illustrates this scenario.

If you are using rubrics but your report card grades must be expressed in percentages, you have already transformed each of your individual grades into percentages. Give more weight to assessments of more important standards and assessments that measure complex and extended thinking, and less weight to assess‑ ments of less important standards and assess‑ ments of recall of information. I still recommend that you use the median percentage as your summary grade. That way you minimize the drastic effect of extreme scores and still report a defensible average grade. (Actually, I recommend the median even for summarizing grades that all began as percentages, not rubrics, for that same reason.) However, you could use the mean percentage as your summary grade as well.

Summing up

This chapter explained how to use rubrics for grading individual assessments and then how to combine them with other individual assessment results for report card grades. In my opinion, the most important aspect of rubrics is how they can be used to describe, develop, and support learning. The grading recommendations in this chapter, for both individual assessments and report cards, are aimed at handling the results of using rubrics for learning in a way that preserves the intended meaning about learning. Because scores from rubrics look like any other numbers, teachers often unknowingly total or average them in ways that are not appropriate for short, ordered‑category scales. I hope this chapter has helped you think through the meaning of grades resulting from rubrics.

The chapter recommended report card grading practices based on a series of deci‑ sions about grading that depend on the kinds of individual grades you have, the manner in which you must express your report card grade, and the meaning your report card

Self-ReflectIon

Which branches of the decision tree in Figure 11.2

are most relevant to your school and classroom

grading policies and needs? How do your grading

practices match with the recommendations made

in this chapter?

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How to Use Rubrics for Grading | 125

grade is intended to have. That’s why there are different recommendations. The chap‑ ter, of course, could not cover every possible answer to those three questions. If your situation was not covered, you can still follow the general plan: (1) identify the set of individual grades you need to summarize, (2) put them all on the same scale, and (3) use a summarizing method that is appropriate to the kind of scores you have and that results in the most appropriate message about student achievement.

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126

Afterword

Rubrics are very common but, in my experience, are often poorly handled. It is common to find trivial or list‑based criteria (for example, “paragraph has four adjectives”). It is also common to find rubrics used like any other point‑based grading scheme, without taking advantage of the formative and student‑centered assessment opportunities they afford. And it’s very common for grading practices to combine rubrics with test scores and other grades in such a way as to misrepresent student achievement in the final grade. One immediate benefit of this book is that it provides a resource that addresses these common problems.

I believe, however, that this book will be more than an antidote to problems associated with rubrics. With clear explanations and a range of examples, and with the inclusion of instruc‑ tional strategies to use with rubrics, I hope this book inspires teachers to more effective use of rubric‑based assessment and instruction and, in particular, to more involvement of students in their own assessment and learning. Therefore, I hope the book supports teachers and advances student learning. I also

Self-ReflectIon

What is your current view of rubrics? Compare

this reflection with the reflection you made at the

beginning of this book.

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Afterword | 127

hope that the examples and explanations support teachers in more active and thought‑ ful use of rubrics (designing and planning their own rubrics, not just grabbing rubrics from a book or from the Internet). This, too, should lead to more strategic teaching and learning.

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128 | How to Create and Use Rubrics

Appendix A: Six-Point 6+1 Trait Writing Rubrics, Grades 3–12

6-POINT WRITER’S RUBRIC

IDEAS

NOT PROFICIENT

1 Beginning 2 Emerging 3 Developing

No main idea, purpose, or central theme exists; reader must infer this based on sketchy or missing

details

Main idea is still missing, though possible topic/theme is emerging

Main idea is present; may be broad or simplistic

A No topic emerges Several topics emerge; any might become central theme or main

idea

Topic becomes clear, though still too broad, lacking focus; reader

must infer message

B Support for topic is not evident Support for topic is limited, unclear; length is not adequate for

development

Support for topic is incidental or confusing, not focused

C There are no details Few details are present; piece simply restates topic and main

idea or merely answers a question

Additional details are present but lack specificity; main idea or topic

emerges but remains weak

D Author is not writing from own

knowledge/experience; ideas are not author’s

Author generalizes about topic without personal knowledge/

experience

Author “tells” based on others’ experiences rather than “showing”

by own experience

E No reader’s questions have been answered

Reader has many questions due to lack of specifics; it is hard to

“fill in the blanks”

Reader begins to recognize focus with specifics, though questions

remain

F Author doesn’t help reader make any connections

Author does not yet connect topic with reader in any way, although

attempts are made

Author provides glimmers into topic; casual connections are

made by reader

Key question: Does the writer stay focused and share original and fresh information or perspective on the topic?

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6-PoInt WRIteR’S RUBRIc: IDEAS (continued )

IDEAS

PROFICIENT

4 Capable 5 Experienced 6 Exceptional

Topic or theme is identified as main idea; development remains

basic or general

Main idea is well marked by detail but could benefit from additional

information

Main idea is clear, supported, and enriched by relevant anecdotes

and details

A Topic is fairly broad, yet author’s

direction is clear Topic is focused yet still needs

additional narrowing Topic is narrow, manageable, and

focused

B Support for topic is starting to work; still does not quite flesh out

key issues

Support for topic is clear and rel- evant except for a moment or two

Support is strong and credible, and uses resources that are

relevant and accurate

C Some details begin to define main idea or topic, yet are limited in

number or clarity

Accurate, precise details support one main idea

Details are relevant, telling; quality details go beyond obvious and are

not predictable

D Author uses a few examples to “show” own experience yet still relies on generic experience of

others

Author presents new ways of thinking about topic based on personal knowledge/experience

Author writes from own knowl- edge/experience; ideas are fresh, original, and uniquely the author’s

E Reader generally understands content and has only a few

questions

Reader’s questions are usually anticipated and answered by

author

Reader’s questions are all answered

F Author begins to stay on topic and begins to connect reader through self, text, world, or other resources

Author connects reader to topic with a few anecdotes, text, or

other resources

Author helps reader make many connections by sharing significant

insights into life

Key question: Does the writer stay focused and share original and fresh information or perspective on the topic?

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Appendix A: Six-Point 6+1 Trait Writing Rubrics, Grades 3–12

6-POINT WRITER’S RUBRIC

ORGANIZATION

NOT PROFICIENT

1 Beginning 2 Emerging 3 Developing

Organization can’t be identified; writing lacks sense of direction; content is strung together in

loose, random fashion

Organization is mostly ineffective; only moments here and there

direct reader

Organization is still problematic, though structure begins to emerge; ability to follow

text is slowed

A There is no lead to set up what follows, no conclusion to wrap

things up

The lead and/or conclusion are ineffective or do not work

Either lead or conclusion or both may be present but are clichés or

leave reader wanting more

B Transitions between paragraphs are confusing or nonexistent

Weak transitions emerge yet offer little help to get from one paragraph to next and not often enough to eliminate confusion

Some transitions are used, but they repeat or mislead, resulting in weak chunking of paragraphs

C Sequencing doesn’t work Little useful sequencing is pres- ent; it’s hard to see how piece fits

together as a whole

Sequencing has taken over so completely, it dominates ideas; it is painfully obvious and formulaic

D Pacing is not evident Pacing is awkward; it slows to a crawl when reader wants to get

on with it, and vice versa

Pacing is dominated by one part of piece and is not controlled in

remainder

E Title (if required) is absent Title (if required) doesn’t match content

Title (if required) hints at weak connection to content; it is unclear

F Lack of structure makes it almost impossible for reader to under-

stand purpose

Structure fails to fit purpose of writing, leaving reader struggling

to discover purpose

Structure begins to clarify purpose

Key question: Does the organizational structure enhance the ideas and make the piece easier to understand?

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6-PoInt WRIteR’S RUBRIc: ORGANIZATION (continued )

ORGANIZATION

PROFICIENT

4 Capable 5 Experienced 6 Exceptional

Organization moves reader through text without too much

confusion

Organization is smooth; only a few small bumps here and there exist

Organization enhances and showcases central idea; order of information is compelling, moving

reader through text

A A recognizable lead and conclu- sion are present; lead may not

create a strong sense of anticipa- tion; conclusion may not tie up all

loose ends

While lead and/or conclusion go beyond obvious, either could go

even further

An inviting lead draws reader in; satisfying conclusion leaves reader with sense of closure and

resolution.

B Transitions often work yet are predictable and formulaic; para- graphs are coming together with

topic sentence and support

Transitions are logical, though may lack originality; ideas are chunked in proper paragraphs and topic sentences are properly

used

Thoughtful transitions clearly show how ideas (paragraphs)

connect throughout entire piece, helping to showcase content of

each paragraph

C Sequencing shows some logic, but is not controlled enough to consistently showcase ideas

Sequencing makes sense and moves a bit beyond obvious, help- ing move reader through piece

Sequencing is logical and effec- tive; moves reader through piece with ease from start to finish

D Pacing is fairly well controlled; sometimes lunges ahead too

quickly or hangs up on details that do not matter

Pacing is controlled; there are still places author needs to highlight or move through more effectively

Pacing is well controlled; author knows when to slow down to

elaborate, and when to move on

E Uninspired title (if required) only restates prompt or topic

Title (if required) settles for minor idea about content rather than

capturing deeper theme

Title (if required) is original, reflecting content and capturing

central theme

F Structure sometimes supports purpose, at other times reader wants to rearrange pieces

Structure generally works well for purpose and for reader

Structure flows so smoothly reader hardly thinks about it;

choice of structure matches and highlights purpose

Key question: Does the organizational structure enhance the ideas and make the piece easier to understand?

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Appendix A: Six-Point 6+1 Trait Writing Rubrics, Grades 3–12

6-POINT WRITER’S RUBRIC

VOICE

NOT PROFICIENT

1 Beginning 2 Emerging 3 Developing

Author seems indifferent, unin- volved, or distanced from topic,

purpose, and/or audience

Author relies on reader’s good faith to hear or feel any voice in phrases such as “I like it” or

“It was fun”

Author’s voice is hard to rec- ognize, even if reader is trying

desperately to “hear” it

A Author does not interact with reader in any fashion; writing is flat, resulting in a disengaged

reader

Author uses only clichés, resulting in continued lack of interaction

with reader

Author seems aware of reader yet discards personal insights in favor

of safe generalities

B Author takes no risks, reveals nothing, lulls reader to sleep

Author reveals little yet doesn’t risk enough to engage reader

Author surprises reader with random “aha” and minimal

risk-taking

C Tone is not evident Tone does not support writing Tone is flat; author does not commit to own writing

D Commitment to topic is missing; writing is lifeless or mechanical; it may be overly technical, formulaic,

or jargonistic

Commitment to topic “might” be present; author does not help

reader feel anything

Commitment to topic begins to emerge; reader wonders if author

cares about topic

E Voice inappropriate for purpose/mode

Voice does not support purpose/ mode; narrative is only an outline; expository or persuasive writing lacks conviction or authority to set it apart from a mere list of facts

Voice is starting to support purpose/mode though remains

weak in many places

Key question: Would you keep reading this piece if it were longer?

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6-PoInt WRIteR’S RUBRIc: VOICE (continued )

VOICE

PROFICIENT

4 Capable 5 Experienced 6 Exceptional

Author seems sincere, yet not fully engaged or involved; result is pleasant or even personable, though topic and purpose are still

not compelling

Author attempts to address topic, purpose, and audience in sincere and engaging way; piece still skips a beat here and there

Author speaks directly to reader in individual, compelling, and engag- ing way that delivers purpose and topic; although passionate, author

is respectful of audience and purpose

A Author attempts to reach audi- ence and has some moments of

successful interaction

Author communicates with reader in earnest, pleasing, authentic

manner

Author interacts with and engages reader in ways that are personally

revealing

B Author surprises, delights, or moves reader in more than one or

two places

Author’s moments of insight and risk-taking enliven piece

Author interacts with and engages reader in ways that are personally

revealing

C Tone begins to support and enrich writing

Tone leans in right direction most of the time

Tone gives flavor and texture to message and is appropriate

D Commitment to topic is pres- ent; author’s own point of view may emerge in a place or two but is obscured behind vague

generalities

Commitment to topic is clear and focused; author’s enthusiasm

starts to catch on

Commitment to topic is strong; author’s passion about topic is

clear, compelling, and energizing; reader wants to know more

E Voice lacks spark for purpose/ mode; narrative is sincere, if not passionate; expository or per- suasive writing lacks consistent engagement with topic to build

credibility

Voice supports author’s purpose/ mode; narrative entertains,

engages reader; expository or persuasive writing reveals why

author chose ideas

Voice is appropriate for purpose/ mode; voice is engaging, passion-

ate, and enthusiastic

Key question: Would you keep reading this piece if it were longer?

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Appendix A: Six-Point 6+1 Trait Writing Rubrics, Grades 3–12

6-POINT WRITER’S RUBRIC

WORD CHOICE

NOT PROFICIENT

1 Beginning 2 Emerging 3 Developing

Vocabulary is limited; author searches for words to convey meaning; no mental imagery

exists

Vocabulary is flawed, resulting in impaired meaning; wrong words are used; and reader can’t picture

message or content

Vocabulary is understandable yet lacks energy; some interpretation is needed to understand parts of

piece

A Words are overly broad and/or so generic no message is evident

Words are so vague and mundane that message is limited and

unclear

Words are adequate and correct in a general sense; message

starts to emerge

B Vocabulary confuses reader and is contradictory; words create no mental imagery, no lingering

memory

Vocabulary has no variety or spice; even simple words are used incorrectly; no mental

images exist

Vocabulary is very basic; simple words rule; variety starts to “show” rather than “tell”; mental

images are still missing

C Words are incorrectly used, mak- ing message secondary to word

misfires

Words are either so plain as to put reader to sleep or so over the top

they make no sense

Original, natural word choices start to emerge so piece sounds

authentic

D Misuse of parts of speech litters piece, confusing reader; no mes-

sage emerges

Redundant parts of speech and/or jargon or clichés distract

from message

Rote parts of speech reflect a lack of craftsmanship; passive verbs, overused nouns, and lack of

modifiers and variety create fuzzy message

Key question: Do the words and phrases create vivid pictures and linger in your mind?

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6-PoInt WRIteR’S RUBRIc: WORD CHOICE (continued )

WORD CHOICE

PROFICIENT

4 Capable 5 Experienced 6 Exceptional

Vocabulary is functional yet still lacks energy; author’s meaning is easy to understand in general

Vocabulary is more precise and appropriate; mental imagery

emerges

Vocabulary is powerful and engaging, creating mental

imagery; words convey intended message in precise, interesting,

and natural way

A Words work and begin to shape unique, individual piece; message

is easy to identify

In most cases words are “just right” and clearly communicate

message

Words are precise and accurate; author’s message is easy to

understand

B Vocabulary includes familiar words and phrases that commu- nicate, yet rarely capture reader’s imagination; perhaps a moment of two of sparkle or imagery

emerges

Vocabulary is strong; it’s easy to “see” what author says because of figurative language—similes, metaphors, and poetic devices;

mental imagery lingers

Vocabulary is striking, powerful, and engaging; it catches reader’s eye and lingers in mind; recall of handful of phrases or mental images is easy and automatic

C Attempts at colorful word choice show willingness to stretch and grow, yet sometimes go too far

New words and phrases are usu- ally correct

Word choice is natural yet original and never overdone; both words and phrases are unique and

effective

D Accurate and occasionally refined parts of speech are functional and

start to shape message

Correct and varied parts of speech are chosen carefully to commu- nicate message, and clarify and

enrich writing

Parts of speech are crafted to best convey message; lively verbs energize, precise nouns/modifiers add depth, color, and specificity

Key question: Do the words and phrases create vivid pictures and linger in your mind?

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Appendix A: Six-Point 6+1 Trait Writing Rubrics, Grades 3–12

6-POINT WRITER’S RUBRIC

SENTENCE FLUENCY

NOT PROFICIENT

1 Beginning 2 Emerging 3 Developing

Sentences are incorrectly structured; reader has to practice to give paper a fair interpretive reading; it’s nearly impossible to

read aloud

Sentences vary little; even easy sentence structures cause reader to stop and decide what is being said and how; it’s challenging to

read aloud

Sentences are technically correct but not varied, creating sing-song pattern or lulling reader to sleep; it sounds mechanical when read

aloud

A Sentence structure is choppy, incomplete, run-on, rambling, or

awkward

Sentence structure works but has phrasing that sounds unnatural

Sentence structure is usually cor- rect, yet sentences do not flow

B No sentence sense—type, begin- ning, connective, rhythm—is evident; determining where

sentences begin and end is nearly impossible

There is little evidence of sen- tence sense; to make sentences flow correctly, most have to be

totally reconstructed

Sentence sense starts to emerge; reader can read through problems and see where sentences begin and end; sentences vary little

C Incomplete sentences make it hard to judge quality of beginnings

or identify type of sentence

Many sentences begin in same way and are simple (subject-verb-

object) and monotonous

Simple and compound sentences and varied beginnings help

strengthen piece

D Weak or no connectives create massive jumble of language; disconnected sentences leave

piece chaotic

“Blah’ connectives (and, so, but, then, and because) lead reader

nowhere

Few simple connectives lead reader from sentence to sentence,

though piece remains weak

E Rhythm is chaotic, not fluid; piece cannot be read aloud without

author’s help, even with practice

Rhythm is random and may still be chaotic; writing does not invite

expressive oral reading

Rhythm emerges; reader can read aloud after a few tries

Key question: Can you feel the words and phrases flow together as you read it aloud?

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6-PoInt WRIteR’S RUBRIc: SENTENCE FLUENCY (continued )

SENTENCE FLUENCY

PROFICIENT

4 Capable 5 Experienced 6 Exceptional

Sentences are varied and hum along, tending to be pleasant or businesslike though may still be more mechanical than musical or

fluid; it’s easy to read aloud

Some sentences are rhythmic and flowing; a variety of sentence types are structured correctly; it flows well when read aloud

Sentences have flow, rhythm, and cadence; are well built within

strong, varied structure that invites expressive oral reading

A Sentence structure is correct and begins to flow but is not artfully

crafted or musical

Sentence structure flows well and moves reader fluidly through piece

Sentence structure is strong, underscoring and enhancing meaning while engaging and

moving reader from beginning to end in fluid fashion

B Sentence sense is moderate; sen- tences are constructed correctly with some variety, hang together,

and are sound

Sentence sense is strong; correct construction and variety are used; few examples of dialogue or frag-

ments are used

Sentence sense is strong and contributes to meaning; dia-

logue, if present, sounds natural; fragments, if used, add style;

sentences are nicely balanced in type, beginnings, connectives, and

rhythm

C Sentence beginnings vary yet are routine, generic; types include simple, compound, and perhaps

even complex

Sentence beginnings are varied and unique; four sentence types (simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex) create bal-

ance and variety

Varied sentence beginnings add interest and energy; four sentence

types are balanced

D Connectives are original and hold piece together but are not always

refined

Thoughtful and varied connectives move reader easily through piece

Creative and appropriate connec- tives show how each sentence relates to previous one and pulls

piece together

E Rhythm is inconsistent; some sentences invite oral reading, others remain stiff, awkward, or

choppy

Rhythm works; reader can read aloud quite easily

Rhythm flows; writing has cadence; first reading aloud is expressive, pleasurable, and fun

Key question: Can you feel the words and phrases flow together as you read it aloud?

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Appendix A: Six-Point 6+1 Trait Writing Rubrics, Grades 3–12

6-POINT WRITER’S RUBRIC

CONVENTIONS

NOT PROFICIENT

1 Beginning 2 Emerging 3 Developing

Errors in conventions are the norm and repeatedly distract reader,

making text unreadable

Many errors of various types of conventions are scattered

throughout text

Author continues to stumble in conventions even on simple tasks and almost always on anything

trickier

A Spelling errors are frequent, even on common words

Spelling is phonetic with many errors

Spelling on simple words is incorrect, although reader can

understand

B Punctuation is often missing or incorrect

Simple end (. ? !) punctuation is correct, internal (, ’ ; — : . . .) punctuation is usually wrong or

missing

Punctuation is inconsistent

C Capitalization is random, inconsis- tent, and sometimes nonexistent

Only the easiest capitalization rules are correctly applied

Capitalization is applied inconsis- tently except for proper nouns and

sentence beginnings

D Errors in grammar/usage are frequent and noticeable, making

writing incomprehensible

Serious grammar/usage problems of every kind make

comprehension difficult

Inappropriate grammar/usage results from heavy reliance on conversational oral language;

meaning is confusing

E Extensive editing (on virtually every line) is required to polish text for publication; reader must read once to decode, then again

for meaning

There is still a lot of editing required for publication; meaning

is uncertain

Too much editing is still needed to publish, although piece begins to

communicate meaning

Key question: How much editing would have to be done to be ready to share with an outside source? (Note: For the trait of conventions, grade level matters. Expectations should be based on grade level and include only skills that have been taught. Expectations for secondary students are obviously much higher than those of

the elementary grade levels.)

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6-PoInt WRIteR’S RUBRIc: CONVENTIONS (continued )

CONVENTIONS

PROFICIENT

4 Capable 5 Experienced 6 Exceptional

Author has reasonable control over standard conventions for grade level; conventions are

sometimes handled well; at other times, errors distract and impair

readability

Author stretches, trying more complex tasks in conventions; several mistakes still exist; for secondary students, all basic

conventions have been mastered

Author uses standard writing conventions effectively to enhance readability; errors are few and only minor editing is needed to

publish

A Spelling is usually correct or reasonable phonetic on common grade-level words, but not on

more difficult words

Spelling on common grade-level words is correct but sometimes incorrect on more difficult words

Spelling is usually correct, even on more difficult words

B End punctuation is usually correct; internal punctuation is sometimes correct; for secondary students all punctuation is usually correct

Punctuation is correct and enhances readability in all but a

few places

Punctuation is correct, creative, and guides reader through entire

piece

C Capitalization is mostly correct Capitalization is correct; more sophisticated capitalization is used

Capitalization is thoroughly under- stood and consistently correct

D Proper grammar/usage remains inconsistent and inaccurate,

though problems are not serious enough to distort meaning

Grammar/usage is usually correct; there are few grammar mistakes

yet meaning is clear

Grammar/usage is correct and contributes to clarity and style;

meaning is more than clear; piece is engaging and inviting to read

E Moderate editing (a little of this, a little of that) is required to publish;

meaning is clear

Several things still need editing before publishing; conventions are more correct than not; meaning is

easily communicated

Hardly any editing is needed to publish; author may successfully manipulate conventions for stylis- tic effect; meaning is crystal clear

the elementary grade levels.)

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Appendix A: Six-Point 6+1 Trait Writing Rubrics, Grades 3–12

6-POINT WRITER’S RUBRIC

PRESENTATION

NOT PROFICIENT

1 Beginning 2 Emerging 3 Developing

Presentation/formatting of piece confuses message

Presentation/formatting delivers a message clear in places and

confusing in others

Presentation/formatting of piece delivers clear message, yet lacks a finished, polished appearance

A Handwritten letters are irregular, formed inconsistently or incor- rectly; spacing is unbalanced or absent; reader can’t identify

letters

Handwritten letters and words are readable with limited problems in letter shape and form; spacing is

inconsistent

Handwriting creates little or no stumbling in readability; spacing

is consistent

B Many fonts/sizes make piece nearly unreadable

Few fonts/sizes make piece hard to read or understand

Fonts/sizes are limited in number; piece starts to come together

visually

C No thought is given to white space—it is random and confus- ing; identifying beginning and

ending of text is difficult

Understanding of white space begins to emerge, though piece

seems “plopped” on paper without margins or boundaries

White space begins to frame and balance piece; margins may be present, though some text may crown edges; usage is inconsis- tent; paragraphs begin to emerge

D Visuals/graphics/charts are non- existent, incomprehensible, and/or

unrelated to text

Visuals/graphics/charts “might” be related to text

Visuals/graphics/charts match and integrate with text at times

E No markers (title, bullets, page numbers, subheads, etc.) are

present

Perhaps one marker (a title, and single bullet or page number) is

used

Markers are used but do not organize or clarify piece

Key question: Is the finished piece easy to read, polished in presentation, and pleasing to the eye?

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6-PoInt WRIteR’S RUBRIc: PRESENTATION (continued )

PRESENTATION

PROFICIENT

4 Capable 5 Experienced 6 Exceptional

Presentation/formatting of piece works in standard, predictable fashion, delivering a clear mes- sage that appears to be finished

Presentation/formatting enhances understanding of message; piece appears finished and is pleasing

to eye

Presentation/formatting exceeds best of finished pieces; formatting extends understanding of mes- sage; finished appearance is of

superior quality

A Handwriting is correct and read- able; spacing is consistent and

neat

Handwriting is neat, readable, consistent; spacing is uniform

between letters and words; text is easy to read

Handwriting borders on calligra- phy; is easy to read and uniformly spaced; pride of author is clear

B Fonts/sizes are consistent and appropriate; piece is easy to

understand

Fonts/sizes invite reader into text; understanding is a breeze

Fonts/sizes enhance readability and enrich overall appearance; understanding is crystal clear

C White space frames text by creating margins; usage is still inconsistent on the whole; some paragraphs are indented, some

are blocked

White space helps reader focus on text; margins frame piece,

other white space frames markers and graphics; usage is consistent and purposeful; most paragraphs are either indented or blocked

White space is used to optimally frame and balance text with mark- ers and graphics; all paragraphs are either indented or blocked

D Visuals/graphics/charts support and consistently clarify text

Visuals/graphics/charts enrich meaning of text and add layer of

understanding

Visuals/graphics/charts help enrich and extend meaning by focusing reader’s attention upon

message

E Markers are used to organize, clarify, and present whole piece

Markers serve to integrate graphics and articulate meaning

of piece

Markers help reader comprehend message and extend or enrich

piece

Key question: Is the finished piece easy to read, polished in presentation, and pleasing to the eye?

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Appendix B: Illustrated Six-Point 6+1 Trait Writing Rubrics, Grades K–2

K–2 IllUStRAteD BeGInnInG WRIteR’S RUBRIc

IDEAS

Exceptional 6

• The Big Idea is clear and original; the topic is narrowed • Supporting details are relevant, accurate, and specific • Pictures, graphs, charts (if present) clarify the text • Focus: The writing stays on topic • Development is generous and complete

Experienced 5

• The Big Idea is clear; the topic is narrowed • Supporting details are relevant, logical, and mostly accurate • Pictures, graphs, charts (if present) clarify the text • Focus: Usually stays on topic • Development is complete

Capable 4

• The Big Idea is clear, but general—a simple story or explanation • Support is presented in the text • Pictures (if present) support the text • Focus: Generally on topic, with a few missteps • Development is adequate

Developing 3

• The Big Idea is stated in text • Support is minimal • Pictures (if present) offer supporting details • Focus: Limited to one sentence (or repeats the same idea) • Development is simplistic

Emerging 2

• Ideas are conveyed in a general way through text, labels, symbols • Support: Not present in the text • Pictures: Connect with a word, label, symbol • Focus: Unclear or extremely limited • Development: Not present

Beginning 1

• Ideas are unclear; print sense is just beginning • Support: Not present • Pictures: Not clear • Focus: Not present • Development: Not present

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K–2 IllUStRAteD BeGInnInG WRIteR’S RUBRIc: IDeAS (continued )

IDEAS

Exceptional 6

Experienced 5

Capable 4

Developing 3

Emerging 2

Beginning 1

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Appendix B: Illustrated Six-Point 6+1 Trait Writing Rubrics Grades, K–2

K–2 IllUStRAteD BeGInnInG WRIteR’S RUBRIc

ORGANIZATION

Exceptional 6

• The structure showcases the main idea • Pictures (if present) enhance the text • Transitions are smooth and varied • Sequencing shows planning for impact • An inviting lead and a developed ending are present • Format assists reader orientation

Experienced 5

• The structure is easy to follow • Pictures (if present) clarify the text • Transitions are somewhat varied • Sequencing is sound • An inviting lead and a concluding sentence are present • Format is clear

Capable 4

• Structure is clearly present and complete in a predictable manner • Pictures (if present) show thoughtful placement of elements • Transitions work in a predictable fashion • Sequencing may take a circuitous route, but reader can follow • A beginning, middle, and end are present (“The end”) • Format is generally accurate in placement of elements

Developing 3

• A structure is present • Picture elements are placed logically • Transitions are missing or rely upon connectives (“and,” “and then”) • Sequencing: Not present or confusing • A bare beginning and middle are present—no end • Text and pictures are generally formatted correctly on page

Emerging 2

• Structure is starting to emerge • Pictures show attempt to order/balance elements • Transitions: Not present • Sequencing: Not present • A beginning is attempted—no middle or end • Formatting signs emerging (left-right orientation, picture and text placement, spacing)

Beginning 1

• Structure is not present • Picture elements are random, scattered, or unbalanced • Sequencing and transitions not present • Beginning or ending not present • Format clues: not present

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K–2 IllUStRAteD BeGInnInG WRIteR’S RUBRIc: oRGAnIZAtIon (continued )

ORGANIZATION

Exceptional 6

Experienced 5

Capable 4

Developing 3

Emerging 2

Beginning 1

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Appendix B: Illustrated Six-Point 6+1 Trait Writing Rubrics Grades, K–2

K–2 IllUStRAteD BeGInnInG WRIteR’S RUBRIc

VOICE

Exceptional 6

• Exceptional expression of feeling, commitment to topic • Pictures (if present) enhance the mood, atmosphere, point of view • Exceptional audience awareness is present; compelling to read • Unmistakably individual; sincere—unique expression

Experienced 5

• The writer’s feelings about the subject are loud and clear • Pictures (if present) enrich the mood, atmosphere • Engages the audience (“Did you know?”) • Individual and sincere expression

Capable 4

• Identifiable feeling(s) are present in the writing • Pictures (if present) capture the atmosphere or mood in a general way • Audience awareness is present • The individual emerges from the text

Developing 3

• Feeling is expressed in a few words/punctuation (“fun,” “like,” “favorite,” underline, exclamation point)

• Pictures show expression in faces and detail • Audience awareness is present in a general way • Individual expression is present

Emerging 2

• A general feeling is captured in words and/or pictures • Pictures capture a mood, simple emotion, or action • Audience awareness: Not yet present or clear • Individual expression is emerging

Beginning 1

• Not enough text is present to convey a mood or feeling • Pictures are hard to interpret • Audience awareness is not yet present • Individual expression is not present

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K–2 IllUStRAteD BeGInnInG WRIteR’S RUBRIc: VoIce (continued )

VOICE

Exceptional 6

Experienced 5

Capable 4

Developing 3

Emerging 2

Beginning 1

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Appendix B: Illustrated Six-Point 6+1 Trait Writing Rubrics Grades, K–2

K–2 IllUStRAteD BeGInnInG WRIteR’S RUBRIc

WORD CHOICE

Exceptional 6

• The text is comprised of words that convey a complete message • Word choice includes striking, memorable phrases • Vocabulary reflects precision and accuracy • Repetition is rarely present

Experienced 5

• The text alone conveys the message in several words • Word choice contains moments of sparkle; everyday words used as well • The vocabulary is expanding • Repetition occurs infrequently

Capable 4

• The words stand on their own to convey a simple message • Words are basic and used correctly • Vocabulary is mostly routine, with a few exceptions • Some repetition is present

Developing 3

• Word groups, phrases convey the topic with some help from pictures • Word choice makes sense • Vocabulary is limited to “known” or “safe” words • Repetition of “safe” words and phrases

Emerging 2

• A few words begin to emerge • Word choice is difficult to decode • Vocabulary relies upon environmental print • Repetition: May repeat letters, alphabet, name, etc.

Beginning 1

• No words are present (imitative writing) • Word choice: Not present • Vocabulary: Not present • Repetition: Inconsistent letter shapes, imitative writing or none

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K–2 IllUStRAteD BeGInnInG WRIteR’S RUBRIc: WoRD cHoIce (continued )

WORD CHOICE

Exceptional 6

Experienced 5

Capable 4

Developing 3

Emerging 2

Beginning 1

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Appendix B: Illustrated Six-Point 6+1 Trait Writing Rubrics Grades, K–2

K–2 IllUStRAteD BeGInnInG WRIteR’S RUBRIc

SENTENCE FLUENCY

Exceptional 6

• Several sentences are present that vary in structure and length • Sentence beginnings are varied • Rhythm is fluid and pleasant to work with • Connective words work smoothly

Experienced 5

• Several sentences are present and employ more than one sentence pattern • Sentence beginnings are varied • Rhythm is more fluid than mechanical—easy to read aloud • Connective words do not interfere with the fluency

Capable 4

• The writing provides a limited sampling of sentence pattern • Sentences do not always begin the same way • Rhythm is more mechanical than fluid • Connective words show some variation

Developing 3

• Most of a sentence is present, decodable in the text (“Like bunne becuz their riree Fas”) • Sentences begin the same way (“I like. . .”) • Rhythm is choppy and repetitive • Connective transitions serve as links between phrases (“and,” “then,” etc.)

Emerging 2

• Part of a sentence may be present (“Cus it is clu”) • A word or phrase may be repeated across the page to form the text • Rhythm is not present • Connective words may appear in sentence parts

Beginning 1

• No sentences or sentence parts are present in the text • The marks, lines, or scribbles may imitate writing from left to right • Words stand alone • Connectives: Not present

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ll ri g h ts

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rv e d .

Appendix B | 151

K–2 IllUStRAteD BeGInnInG WRIteR’S RUBRIc: Sentence flUencY (continued )

SENTENCE FLUENCY

Exceptional 6

Experienced 5

Capable 4

Developing 3

Emerging 2

Beginning 1

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 1 3 . A

ss o ci

a tio

n f o r

S u p e rv

is io

n &

C u rr

ic u lu

m D

e ve

lo p m

e n t. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

152 | How to Create and Use Rubrics

Appendix B: Illustrated Six-Point 6+1 Trait Writing Rubrics Grades, K–2

K–2 IllUStRAteD BeGInnInG WRIteR’S RUBRIc

CONVENTIONS

Exceptional 6

• Capitalization: Accurate for sentence beginnings, proper names, titles • Punctuation: End punctuation, commas in series, other varied uses for stylistic effect • Spelling: Grade level words and “hard” words spelled logically, if not accurately • Grammar and usage: Accurate • Paragraphing: Consistent indention for paragraphs

Experiences 5

• Capitalization: Capitals for sentence beginnings, proper names, titles usually correct • Punctuation: End punctuation usually correct—some varied uses present • Spelling: Usually accurate for grade level words • Grammar and usage: Usually accurate • Paragraphing: First line indented

Capable 4

• Capitalization: Capitals for sentence beginnings, names, titles in evidence • Punctuation: End punctuation is present • Spelling: High use grade level words mostly correct; phonetic spelling easy to decode • Grammar and usage: subject/verb agreement, tense, still spotty • Paragraphing: spotty, or not present

Developing 3

• Capitalization: Beginning sentence, names, title still inconsistent • Punctuation: Period or other punctuation is present somewhere • Spelling: Phonetic spelling decodable; accurate spelling of some words • Grammar and usage: A grammatical construction is present, but missing parts • Paragraphing: Not present

Emerging 2

• Capitalization: Random use of upper and lower case letters • Punctuation: None or random • Spelling: Phonetic, some decodable and/or simple words spelled correctly • Grammar and usage: Part of a grammatical construction is present • Paragraphing: Not present

Beginning 1

• Capitalization: Print sense still emerging • Punctuation: None • Spelling: Pre-phonetic or not present • Grammar and usage: Not present • Paragraphing: Not present

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 1 3 . A

ss o ci

a tio

n f o r

S u p e rv

is io

n &

C u rr

ic u lu

m D

e ve

lo p m

e n t. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

Appendix B | 153

K–2 IllUStRAteD BeGInnInG WRIteR’S RUBRIc: conVentIonS (continued )

CONVENTIONS

Exceptional 6

Experiences 5

Capable 4

Developing 3

Emerging 2

Beginning 1

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 1 3 . A

ss o ci

a tio

n f o r

S u p e rv

is io

n &

C u rr

ic u lu

m D

e ve

lo p m

e n t. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .